Leola Johnson: “I am really interested in Ella Baker, the unheralded leader of the civil rights movement, and Essie Robeson, the wife of Paul Robeson. I am more and more thinking about how cutting edge these women were.”

Jose Santos: Check out the casta paintings that depict the mixing of races and the caste system in Spanish colonies. Santos also recommends reading Octavio Paz, who wrote about “mestizos” and how a mix of races “means that there is a necessary conflict in the idea of Mexico.”

(MEXICO CITY, MEXICO: A photo dated 16 December 1991 of Mexican poet and philosopher Octavio Paz in Paris. Paz died in Mexico 19 April at the age of 84. JOEL ROBINE/AFP/Getty Images)

About the blogger

Stephanie Curtis has produced events, daily news shows, documentaries, conferences and call-ins for MPR News. She also was among the pioneering producers who launched The Current. You can hear her discuss movies every Thursday on The Cube Critics.